El Topo - Jodorowsky

When a man buries a pole in the sand,
he automatically creates a sundial and begins to mark time.
To begin marking time is to begin creating a culture.

A pole rises out of the desert sand.
El Topo appears riding a black horse.
He is dressed entirely in black:
boots, pants, shirt, jacket, hat.
He carries an open umbrella.

[Strange to carry an umbrella in the desert
where it never rains! Perhaps El Topo is
waiting for the rain to come forth from his body
to collect it in the black chalice: the umbrella.]

His seven-year-old son rides behind him,
holding on to his back. Except for a hat and
moccasins, the child is nude. His name is Brontis.

El Topo dismounts and lifts his son down.
He ties the umbrella to the pole so that the black
chalice, the cup, becomes fused with the pole.

[A marriage between that which exists face down
waiting to be nourished from the ground: the umbrella;
and that which exists growing upward waiting
to be nourished by the sun and the sky: the pole.]

He removes a leather pouch from his saddle and
takes out a toy bear and a picture of a woman.
The picture is mounted in an antique frame banded
in black. A symbol of grief. El Topo speaks to Brontis.

EL TOPO
Today you are seven years old.
Now you are a man.
Bury your first toy and your mother's picture.

The child sits beside the sundial.

[Filmed at noon so there is no shadow.
Perhaps the child is the sundial's shadow.]

He digs a hole in the sand and buries the bear,
while El Topo plays a flute. The child tries to bury
his mother's picture but can't quite complete the task.
Half the picture remains above the surface of the sand
as El Topo rides off holding the open umbrella,
his song seated behind him.

The titles appear in the sky as El Topo
and Brontis disappear in the horizon.

DRAWINGS OF MOLES. The following narration is heard.

MAN'S VOICE
THE MOLE IS AN ANIMAL THAT DIGS TUNNELS
UNDERGROUND SEARCHING FOR THE SUN.
SOMETIMES HIS JOURNEY LEADS HIM TO THE SURFACE.
WHEN HE LOOKS AT THE SUN, HE IS BLINDED.

Coming out of the desert, El Topo and Brontis ride past a green tree,
the first sign of the desert's end. El Topo crosses the threshold marked
by the tree as if he were entering the vegetal door to the human world.

Cries of vultures. El Topo sees a circular pool filled with blood.
On a tall stake, the body of a child is impaled.

[Another sundial, but this time a criminal sundial.]

El Topo continues his riding and enters a village street where
he sees disemboweled burros, the corpse of an old horse,
painted red, and one hundred women dressed in white,
immobile as if asleep, raped and murdered. Brides.

El Topo rides along the street past the smouldering ruins
of furniture. He approaches a church splashed with blood.
In front of the church runs a river of blood. El Topo dismounts
with his son and carries him across the bloody river.

[Rite of Initiation.]

Opening the doors of the church, he sees the multitude
of men hanging from the rafters. Bridegrooms.

El Topo leaves the church and sees an Old Man who has
been butchered dragging himself along the ground.

[...]

The Franciscan Mission.

A gigantic bandit, nicknamed El Chiquilin (Tiny),
shoots ten children with a machine gun.
Countless graves, perhaps of former victims.
As the children fall to the ground bleeding,
a gilded gramophone is seen.
It is playing music. El Chiquilin laughs.

El Topo and Brontis approach the wall of the Mission.
They peer over and see the Bandits of the Franciscan Mission.

Four Monks are tied by the wrists with two ropes secured to the cross
of one of the bell towers. The Bandit of the Three Hats drinks rum
and reads a large red Bible. The Thin Bandit drinks rum from a
gold chalice. He is surrounded by icons, candelabras, altar robes,
religious paintings. There are many graves. The Thin Bandit
plays solitaire on one of the paintings. The Thin Bandit drinks.
He chokes and spits up in a burst of laughter.
He is happy with his treasures.

A Bandit called Cacama is dressed like a bridegroom,
in veils and a crowned hat. He cuts off the leg of a live chicken
with his machete and tries to feed it to his collection of iguanas.
Another Bandit, the Plumed One, walks among the graves carrying
the old gilded gramaphone. The Bandit of the Three Hats tears
out a page of the Bible, blows his nose in it, wads it into a ball
and tosses it away. He calmly continues reading the Holy Book.

Cacama approaches, dragging his mascot iguana behind him by a rope.
The Plumed One winds up the gramaphone and puts on a record.
An old Mexican waltz plays. The Four Bandits walk toward the Monks
tied to the bell tower. They untie them, bow to them, threaten them
with their pistols. The Franciscans come toward the Bandits.
The Bandits take the Monks by their waists and begin to waltz with them.
The Bandits kiss the Monks as if they were women.
Each kiss is more passionate than the last.

Cacama undresses one of the Monks and drapes an altar cloth
around him like a veil. He cuts his own finger with his knife
and reddens the Monk's lips with his blood.

The Four Bandits run off among the cactus
with the nude Monks over their shoulders.

The Four Monks get down on their hands and knees,
and the Bandits ride them like horses, whipping their
buttocks with spiny cactus leaves. Their buttocks bleed.

A row of two hundred townspeople lean face forward against a wall
of the convent. El Chiquilin walks by them. He pulls out his revolver,
and at each ten steps he fires at random into the lineup.
Those who are hit fall slowly to the ground.

The Four Bandits return from their orgy
carrying the Monks, whom they have bound.